"Luftwaffe Questions" Topic

…for 1978 or thereabouts!

Can anybody help me answer the following Qs?

1. How soon were F4s used for ground attack? My understanding is that this was not official until the early 80s, but did they have the capability before then?

2. Where any older aeroplanes – Fiat G9s, F-84s etc – still available for use in extremis?

Thanks in advance.

The G.91 was still knocking around in some numbers – the Germans retired it in '82 as the Alpha Jet came in. (The first Alphas were just being delivered in '78, but probably not operational, so the G.91 was still the go-to for light attack.)

All Ginas until then.

Alpha jets come on stream starting in '82, Tornadoes about then too.

Cheers, all.

I tend to play around with my Cold War timelines a bit so I can field stuff I like (and what is available in 1/72), so I already have an Alpha and F104 lined up for painting, but this is a good excuse to get a G91!

Having just glued a Phantom together I wondered if I was pushing it, even under my lax rules, to stick some crosses on it.

From a quick Google you're fine – by the late '70s there were 4 combat groups with Phantoms, but only the first two formed were jagdgeschwadern – the other two were jabo groups, so dual use fighter-bomber.

F-104G Starfighters were used for ground attack through that period

West German Air Force (450× F-84F, 108× RF-84F 1956–1967).

I think most were used as ground attack aircraft, and their F-86s were for air defense.

"No less than 450 F-84F's were delivered to the Luftwaffe (that is to say the West German Air Force) commencing in 1956 with assignments to the Fighter Training School and Weapons School at Fürstenfeldbrück and Erding respectively.

In 1957 the first operational Wing was formed , being JagdBomberGeschwader 31 (JBG31) at Büchel, later Nörvenich with squadron-code DA , followed by 5 more during the period 1958 to 1961, these being JBG32 (Lechfeld , code DB), 33 (Büchel , code DC),34 (Memmingen , code DD) , 35 (Husum , code DE) and 36 (Rheine-Hopsten , code DF). The last Thunderstreaks went out of service in December 1966, although already from 1961 the F-104 Starfighter gradually took over its role. More than 230 German Streaks were transferred to the Turkish and Greek Air Forces and some still survive today as monuments or in museums".

link

Well I'm a happy bunny now!

The joy of this particular point of the Cold War is the mix of aircraft (if you ignore the masses of F104s…) you can field, especially with different nations supporting each other.

The use of F104G Starfighters for ground attack craft still boggles my mind. They lost a fair number to accidents from what I recall.

The 104's oddly well suited to low level work, as tiny wings plus lots of thrust equals a smoother ride. Once the hateful downward ejector was gone, and training issues finally addressed, it lost much of its Widowmaker reputation.

AAAHHhh the old Flying Coffin, the Widowmaker, Lawn Dart, Aluminium Death Tube and a few other names I can not put up here.

F104 was only selected due to irregularities in the procurement process which involved large bundles of money changing hands in secret

Of course, BAe would never stoop so low…

I'm considering dropping back to 1977 so I can squeeze in the Super Mystere for the French! Although I could just say, with war in the offing, that they delay decommissioning.

Anyway, I'm going off my own topic now so thanks again for all the replies.

At least the hugely dubious Lockheed deal got everyone the C-130 too – it's nice when massive dodgy dealing accidentally delivers an excellent piece of kit to go with the supersonic pile of crap….

At least BAE have the decency to try to bribe you into buying a decent aircraft. Not the heap of crap that the Starfighter was. The USAF saw through how poor it was (remember its combat record in Vietnam? And its performance at home was pretty dreadful) but it was OK pushing it on allies for roles that it was clearly unsuitable for. Its a shame 200+ German pilots had to pay for that with their lives.

The Starfighter was a beautiful jet.

Seems to me that those "irregularities" are a very common, and almost mandatory part of the international weapons sales process.

I suspect the losers ponied up money too, in many cases, but not as much as the winning sales teams did.

David Manley
200+ fatalities? A bit of an exaggeration. 110 actually of whom 28 were lost to bird strike, more a result of the operational role than any fault of the aircraft. Not only that if the 104 was such a death trap how come the other nine NATO air forces who flew it, in most cases as fighter bombers, didn't suffer the same problems? (Even the two which did, Belgium and Canada, didn't suffer the catastrophic losses that Germany did.) Don't get me wrong the Starfighter is far from perfect and was never designed to carry out those sort of duties but neither were the Phantom or the F-16 but both were adapted to do it. There are many reasons why the Germans lost so many aircraft, some were Lockheed's fault, but more were caused by the Luftwaffe's own practices and culture at the time. Note that once "Macky" Steinhoff took command the losses declined quickly.

Fatman

Have to agree with Fatman (happens occasionally….) The F-104 was a somewhat flawed but basically serviceable jet, and once the poxy ejector seat was replaced wasn't inherently dangerous even at low level.

The biggest problem was a poor training regimen and general overconfidence bordering on arrogance (we are the Luftwaffe, you can't teach us anything….) Once Steinhoff started kicking arse and taking names its safety record in German service went from conspicuously dire to comparable with other western air forces, whether they flew F-104s, Mirages or whatever.

(Yes Canada also had a really atrocious accident rate with the F-104, but again they had underlying problems and a culture of flying them hard, often in marginal weather conditions. Indeed their accident rate flying F-86s had been even more disastrous than with the F-104, and the Sabre's a jet nobody considered particularly dangerous. Looking at other air forces it did just fine – the Italians were still using it into this century, and the Spanish managed not to crash a single one – they tended not to be barreling around at low level on foggy days though….)

Arrrrrgh Dom's agreeing with me! Now I feel dirty.

Fatman